Colouring pages of flowers are very popular for colourists in our wonderful community. Flowers feature in many designs, whether they are the main focus of the page or form part of the background of an image.
We love colouring flowers as they are great for exploring different textures, styles and experimenting with colour. They also look amazing when coloured! Within this guide on how to colour flowers, we’re going to focus on a few techniques, tips and tricks so your flower colouring can bloom…
Don’t miss our free Beginner’s Guide to Colouring PDF – full of tips and tricks for new colourists, and 12 beginner friendly colouring pages to get you started.
It’s time to pick the colours for your flowers, and there are many options here! If you are following the example of what the flowers look like in real life, your colour choices can be quite simple. For example, colouring a sunflower the classic golden yellow and brown tones. However, if you want to pick your own shades we suggest opting for a tonal colour palette rather than using contrasting shades. For example, this could be picking the colour blue and using varying tones from a sky blue, into a navy, into a purple tone. We recommend a tonal palette as it brings more depth and dimension to the petals. If you did want to try contrasting colours, take a peek at Colour Theory and pick complementary colours from opposite sides of the colour wheel.
You may find our articles about colour theory and colour schemes helpful for choosing your colours, or have a browse of our inspiring colour palette examples!
To begin colouring your petals, start with the lightest shade of your colour choices and create a base layer on the petals. Use a light pressure for this, you just want to begin building up the colour softly. From here, you can then begin to use darker shades and continue to build up the colour of the petals. When using the darker shades, again keep a light to medium pressure and create lines from the outer edge of the petal into the centre of the flower. You can use pressure here to experiment with light, for example, pressing harder on the outer edge of the petal and then using softer pressure the closer you get to the middle. Continue building up your petals with different shades using this technique. You may find our article about blending helpful for mastering this technique.
We love this tutorial about how to colour flowers that uses this style of colouring:
Another option that we love is using those beautiful colours you picked at the start and creating a colour gradient within your petals. Working from the centre of your flower outwards, use the lightest shade, then a darker shade as you move towards the edge of the petals and then an even darker shade. The main thing to focus on here is blending and ensuring that your colours seamlessly fade into each other rather than being harsh transitions.
Check out this time-lapse video of colouring a gradient on some flowers to understand the technique more:
Another general consideration when colouring flowers is how you would like to use texture. There are several techniques that you could try depending on how you would like your end result to look. If you would like your flowers to be opaque and have a glossy finish, try burnishing. Burnishing is a technique where you create lots of layers of coloured pencil until the paper no longer shows and there is a shiny finish. Alternatively, if you want a more textured effect, a technique like cross hatching might work. Cross hatching is where you layer parallel lines on top of each other in a cross like manner and it is especially effective when shading. There are so many options, so explore texture and these techniques and discover your favourites!
To learn more about these techniques, check out this video that runs through 12 simple colouring techniques to try:
You’ve picked up some tips, tricks and techniques for how to colour flowers, but for a more in depth look at how to colour roses with a beautiful 3D effect, take a look at this tutorial on our YouTube channel:
Now that you have some techniques under your wing, it’s time to start colouring some flowers! And the good news is we have some brilliant issues of Colouring Heaven that featuring beautiful flower colouring pages to get you started. Here are our favourite issues of Colouring Heaven for gorgeous colouring pages of flowers…
For our ultimate roundup of floral designs from issues of Colouring Heaven, take a look at our new Colouring Heaven Presents Flowers Compendium!
Colouring Heaven Nouveau Fairies Special is packed full of gorgeous floral details in stunning nouveau detail. If you like to work with thick outer lines for your colouring, but prefer more delicate inner details, you’ll love this issue.
Colouring Heaven Collection Patterns has some really beautiful floral designs mixed into some meditative and mindful patterns. You can be extra creative with this issue and try different colours and techniques to your heart’s content!
For stunning floral portraits, take a look at Colouring Heaven Collection Flower Girls. A combination of our two favourite things to colour – colouring pages of flowers and beautiful portraits!
You can also find some beautiful flower colouring pages for free on our website! Take a look at our free colouring pages here.
Left to right: #72 Nouveau Fairies Special, #37 Collection Patterns, #36 Collection Flower Girls, #05 Junior Flower Sprites.
With colouring in general and especially with colouring pages of flowers, there are no rules! Be sure to have fun with your colouring and allow yourself room to explore and get creative with it. We love seeing all of your amazing colouring and can’t wait to see what you make!
If you like our how to colour guides, check out our guide on how to colour dragons, how to colour a mermaid and how to colour a unicorn.
Don’t miss our free Beginner’s Guide to Colouring PDF – full of tips and tricks for new colourists, and 12 beginner friendly colouring pages to get you started.
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to keep up with all things Colouring Heaven. Be sure to share your beautiful colouring with us in our Friends of Colouring Heaven Facebook group and join our friendly, lovely community!
Become a Colouring Heaven Plus member today to make sure you don’t miss an issue of Colouring Heaven, plus lots of other benefits including discounted issues and more.
To receive more colouring tutorials, advice and news direct to your inbox – plus 4 exclusive free colouring pages – sign up to our free Colouring Heaven email newsletter.
